Crescent Heights Closes One of O.C.’s Priciest Multifamily Deals Ever
The deal follows a string of high-dollar multifamily sales in SoCal in recent months
By Nick Trombola April 8, 2025 8:00 pm
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A Miami-based development and investment group has pulled the trigger on one of the priciest multifamily deals ever closed in Southern California’s Orange County.
Crescent Heights — led by Sonny Kahn, Russell Galbut and Bruce Menin — has paid $240 million to Essex Property Trust for Skyline at MacArthur Place, a pair of 25-story residential towers in Santa Ana. The deal for the 350-unit luxury towers is the fourth most expensive multifamily trade in Orange County’s history, according to CoStar.
The deal is also a good return for Essex. The real estate investment trust, alongside a joint venture partner, paid $128 million for the complex, at 15 MacArthur Place, in 2010. The towers were built by Nexus Development originally as for-sale condominium units, but faced foreclosure in the wake of the housing crash. Essex subsequently converted the condos into rental apartments, and bought out its unnamed former partner for $85 million in 2012.
Representatives for Crescent Heights and for Essex did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Nine-figure deals for certain luxury multifamily properties are becoming more common in Southern California. MG Properties, for example, paid Greystar $304 million in February for a 718-unit development in Downtown San Diego. The plaza, built in a master-planned neighborhood adjacent to the San Diego Padres’ Petco Park, was the third-largest sale in the city’s history. Essex meanwhile sold the 257-unit Highridge Apartments in Rancho Palos Verdes to Bascom Group for $127 million in March.
Skyline at MacArthur Place’s price per unit, at $686,000, is less than that of a relatively small multifamily deal in L.A.’s Brentwood neighborhood. Famh Group paid $58.1 million — or roughly $745,000 per unit — to California Landmark Group for the 78-apartment BW complex. That deal closed as the highest price per unit paid for a multifamily building in L.A. in over three years, according to the brokers.
Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.
